This is an interesting article on the subject of "what to do about the big corporations":

Now I'm no fan of Wallyworld, but I found myself there one day last
week. I've got this cat, you see - he's an old male, and like some
old male cats, he's prone to urinary tract infections. The only way
to prevent them is to feed him special food. I can buy that food
from the vet, but the annual food bill for the cat is over $1000 if
I do. But Purina makes a reasonably priced brand that does the job.
The problem is that no place in 30 miles of me other than Walmart
sells it. So once every few months, I go and donate the price of a
couple of bags of cat food to the cause of industrialization.

I won't justify it, except to say that I don't think spending four
times as much gas to go buy it at a Kmart is really all that much
better - Kmart being only marginally preferrable, and just as much
money going to feed the monster of industrial civilization. And from
a purely sociological perspective, Walmart is kind of interesting.
For example, I was nearby early one morning, and discovered that
really early in the morning, our local Walmart plays Christian
devotional music on the PA system. How interesting is that -
apparently, only Christians shop early.

One of the things that has interested me the most lately about
Walmart is its turn toward organic food. Now this is the most
industrial of industrial organics. And they've always had some - as
long as I've lived out this way you could buy organic tofu,
Stonyfield farms yogurt and organic goat's milk. But now there's a
*lot* of organic food. For example, I saw some grapes there - 3xs
the price of the conventional grapes, and packaged in a giant
plastic clamshell box, lest one of the grapes (which cost 5cents
each, I suspect) get squished. But it has a nice, earthy brown paper
label, with a picture of a pretty farm, and that all important
label "organic" on it.

Target has decided to compete, creating its own organic label. And
helpfully, the USDA has relaxed the already not-very stringent rules
on what constitutes organic in industrial agriculture. Apparently
you can use a little bit of poison here and there, and add some
petroleum distillates to your food - just not as much. And, of
course, there are no limits on the amount of petroleum permitted to
plant, harvest, package, ship, refrigerate, etc... your food. Very
few limits on the inhumane treatment of animals, and none at all on
the inhumane treatment of human beings, including migrant workers.
In fact, organic agriculture often is worse for workers, who don't
get pesticide exposure but do get massive repetetive strain
injuries. Industrial organic agriculture is a disaster - just a
slightly smaller, milder disaster than regular industrial
agriculture. If you don't believe me, definitely read Michael
Pollan's account of it in _The Omnivore's Dilemma_.

Now the good thing about Walmart and Target going organic is that
millions of people who don't have food coops, or local farmers will
have access to organic food. In fact, Walmart is committed to making
it cheap (don't think too hard about what has to be done on the
other end to make it cheap!), so that poor people can have equal
access to organics. Lots of people are happy that now they can have
pesticide-free food in their little town.

But here's a question. Is it reasonable to say that the only thing
we have to do if we want a safe and sane and just food system
is "create demand?" Because that's what the free market claims is
the only obligation we "consumers" (think hard about that word - do
you want to be known mostly for your capacity to consume things?)
have. If we demand things, the magical market will supply them. But
what is left out of this equation is that it won't really supply
what we *want* - it won't give us the things we dream about, or that
we hope for, or that we believe are good and right. Markets and
corporations don't do that - they can't. They aren't people, they
don't have a morality, or a sense of justice, or passion or love.
Corporations are facsimiles of human beings, stripped of ethics,
love, caring, justice and honor. So what they give us is facsimiles
of what we truly want and dream of. Thus, you get the organic frozen
turkey dinner, with paste-flavored mashed potatoes, instead of the
turkey grown by a neighbor and roasted by someone who loves you. The
same is true of industrial organic food - it requires so much
petroleum, because it is essentially a plastic model of small scale
organic food. We are told all we have to do is want, and open our
mouths like a baby bird, and the market and corporations will drop
something into our open gullets. But let us remember that if all we
are going to contribute is demand and an open mouth, we should
expect what is dropped into our mouths to be a worm.

The reality is that any decent future asks more of us than simply
demanding and wanting. If your community has no access to truly
organic, local, sustainably created food, then you need to help
create some, not rely on Walmart or Tarjay to produce it. It is easy
to rail against corporations, when in fact the reason corporations
have so much power is that we have ceded it to them. We have said we
don't have time or knowledge or energy to create just systems, so
that we should allow markets to do our work for us. And then we act
surprised and outraged when artificial human beings, motivated by
greed, fail to live up to our principles. The only possible solution
is for us to cease to subcontract our needs and responsibilities out
to artificial human beings. Instead, buy things from people, ideally
people you know, and put your own work into the system. If there's
no food coop, start one. If there's no farmer's market, talk to
local farmers about sourcing food or finding them. If all the
clothing is made by slaves in the third world, buy used or make your
own. We cannot expect corporate ogliarchy to cease if we are not
willing to make it stop, one dollar at a time.

As for me, I'm looking into making my own cat food. As much of a
learning experience as my trip to Walmart was, more is being asked
of me. And you.

Sharon in upstate NY